Month: November 2016

Globalization of Puerto Rico

In the film, “West Side Story,” there is a scene where Anita and Bernardo sing about the pros and cons of being an American as opposed to a Puerto Rican. In this argument Anita sings of all the pros to being an American and all the new opportunities available here that wasn’t available back in Puerto Rico. She sings of all the new technology, job opportunities and freedom she has as a woman that she wouldn’t otherwise have in Puerto Rico. Bernardo on the other hand, was a bit more critical. He sings that there are limits to these new freedoms and opportunities. For example, he sings about how job opportunities are limited to positions as waiters or shoe polishers for Puerto Ricans. He also sings about how most things that are available in America are also available in Puerto Rico. The only difference is that these same items cost more in America.

In the Briggs reading, it proposes the same debate of whether or not globalization is a good thing, particularly in Puerto Rico. Linda Chavez argues in her book, Out of the Barrio that America’s colonization of Puerto Rico actually does more harm than good. In the 1950s and 1960s, many garment industry and other manufacturing jobs were held by Puerto Rican women in northeastern cities where they mostly settled. These people chose to stay and ended up on welfare. She recalls an AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) program that was meant to aid the people on the island. Chavez claims the people left behind their traditions and were changed for the worse when they moved to mainland U.S. and ended up living off of welfare.

Jets and Sharks

Westside Story does an excellent job showing us the state of race relations. It seems as the biggest difference between the Jets and the Sharks is race. The Jets are all white and American, but the Jets are all from Puerto Rico. Throughout the story we’ve been able to see just how tense things are between the two groups, with large fights becoming a possibility very often as a result of members feeling such strong hatred towards each other. The fact that there was such a strong division between the Jets and Sharks really shows how bad things between Americans and Puerto Ricans were at the time. With more and more people coming to America from Puerto Rico, some of us were not as welcome as we’d like to believe. There were many instances of Americans feeling superior to the Puerto Ricans, and some even questioned why Puerto Ricans were even coming to the United States. Sometimes, Puerto Ricans were blamed for in an increase in crime rate. It’s very interesting to see how all the Puerto Ricans come together to form their own group, the Sharks. Because Puerto Ricans weren’t very liked, and were all considered to be on the lower end of the social hierarchy, they all came together to form their own group and together, they didn’t let anyone tell them that they were better than them. Even the Jets, who were born and raised in New York, had to deal with the Sharks multiple times, and the tension between the two groups frequently resulted in large groups of members fighting each other. Despite their racial differences, the Sharks weren’t going to let anyone put them down, especially not the Jets.

West Side Story and Reproducing Empire

In class we watched a movie from 1962 called “West Side Story.” It started on the streets of New York where a gang of white guys called the Jets were hanging around the park. Then a gang of Puerto rican guys, called the Sharks, came in and we immediately see tensions between these two gangs. The tension could be caused by each gang not liking each other because of their race or just a territorial issue. A white guy named Tony falls in love with a Puerto rican girl and she feels the same way. She is cautious of the relationship because she is scared that her family will disapprove of him because he is white and because he is affiliated with their rival gang. In the reading “Reproducing Empire” by Laura Briggs discusses American imperialism in Puerto Rico and how it views Puerto Ricans at the time. It tells of a common idea that Americans had of Puerto Ricans, “One held that Puerto Ricans were, definition, sick and needed to be kept at arm’s length from our soldiers and sailors, who could be infected by them and thus endanger wives and children on the mainland.” (Briggs 17). This quote from the reading explains a thought that people had of Puerto Ricans, that you have to avoid them or you might contract an illness or disease. This relates to the movie because the Jets probably think of Puerto Ricans as lower than them and are racist towards them.

Sharks V. Jets

West Side Story takes place in New York, Manhattan. In the beginning of the musical, we see an American gang called the Jets having tension with a Hispanic group called the Sharks. During this time New York was experiencing something called globalization and colonization. In L. Briggs excerpt, Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex, Science, and US Imperialism in Puerto Rico, he explains that with globalization, interaction with other nations, leads to development and colonization (Briggs, page 1).Colonization meaning that people from other nations moving into the United States; these people were called immigrants. The mixing of races caused different problems in the United States. Americans believed that Puerto Ricans immigrants were poor, had extremely large families, and were sexually active. People in American didn’t like the new immigrants company. In fact Americans questioned why Puerto Ricans were in America. A conservative newspaper writer, Don Feder, compares needing non english speakers in New York to needing higher crime rates in the country (Briggs, page 7).This shows how much they dislike immigrants. This strong dislike explains why the gang Jets hated the gang Sharks. The tension between them sparked from racial differences. Both gang competed with each other and fought each together to prove which gang was better. According to Briggs excerpt, he explains that immigrants were usually grouped together at the bottom of the social ladder or in the “rung of the social ladder” (page 163). The Jets probably viewed the Sharks as the lower class. As a result of the different social classes, both gangs competed with each together. This competition is sort of like a pride thing for both groups. The Jets are from New York so they should be the superior class, while the Sharks are foreigners. But the Sharks aren’t willing to accept that they are the lower class.

Construction of Race and Difference in the American Empire

In the film “West Side Story”, there was a particular scene where the wife or girlfriend of the leader of the Puerto Rican ‘gang’ started singing a song about how she was in America. From the interpretation I came up with, I believe the whole notion of that song was to show that now since she was in America, she was more liberalized and had the choice to do whatever she wanted. This is evident by when Maria was not allowed to be with the guy she met at the dance by her brother, the leader of the Puerto Rican ‘gang’. Her brother’s wife or girlfriend didn’t said “now she is in America”, implying that she has a right to do what she wanted. This notion of liberalization is also evident in the reading “Reproducing Empire” when Briggs said that “Puerto Rican woman coming to the United States were achieving greater independence from home and husband, freedom from male dominance, usually through work outside of home.” This displayed how women had more freedom to do things they wouldn’t be able to do in their homeland of Puerto Rico. This maybe because of traditional values in the homeland. The traditional concept wasn’t in the United States so thus, it gave many Puerto Rican women a chance to be more free, or in a sense, more liberal. This portrays the construction of race and difference in the American Empire. The difference being shown by seeing how both countries were different, which in turn, shows the construction of the Puerto Rican race and seeing how they did what they did especially when women from their thrived because of freedom.